20 Creative Ways For Honoring & Memorializing Your Loved One

Creating a memorial item, place, and/or service for the deceased can help those close to them be able to verbally and symbolically say goodbye.

Just for a grieving person to have people to talk to about the feelings and thoughts they’re having, and to be able to reflect on the life of the deceased with each other can be greatly comforting.

Creating a memorial at home could happen in many different places, and in various ways. You could make a little memorial space where you congregate with the family such as a coffee table in a family room or an entire wall in the living room.

You could choose a more personal space such as a bookshelf in the bedroom or office . A spare bedroom or guest bedroom is another way to utilize an empty space for a memorial to a loved one.

Some ways you can decorate your memorial space include:

With how much the internet plays a role in modern society, it’s not surprising that online memorials have become so popular these days. Online memorials can be created with various memorial sites, independently, or via your loved one’s social media platform such as Facebook, if they used one.

Most people opt to use a memorial site since creating an independent one themselves can be a very daunting task. This EverPlans article lists out the top ten online memorial sites and specifies the prices of each.

The list can be quite helpful if you’re wondering about the varying aspects of the options that are out there—it lists the pros and cons of each site that made their list.

There are a variety of outdoor memorialization options, such as human composting, aerial scattering, fireworks, and more. These methods of paying tribute to someone are definitely more on the adventurous side, but many of them also aim to assist the environment. Depending on your loved one’s final wishes, some of these outdoor options might be very fitting as a final goodbye.

Churches are slightly more traditional places where you can have a memorial for your loved one. They will often do an initial memorial following the death as well as yearly memorials for recognizing the anniversary your loved one might have died.

If you are a church-goer, ask which options they might have available. If you don’t normally attend church but are still curious, it’s never a bad time to check out the churches near you in order to get some help paying tribute to your loved one.

• Private services: Check with your local church to see what options they might have for private services. This is most commonly offered in the aftermath of someone’s death.
• Communal services: This is a type of service that is sometimes referred to as an ‘All Souls’ service, or a service for the bereaved. If you’re a member of a church, attending one of these services would be a great way to memorialize someone you cared about that died in the past. Some churches also offer this during the holidays like Christmas, and special days such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. These holidays can be very painful for those who have lost close family members and friends, and many churches will offer separate services for those affected by such a loss.

There are a few different options within this category of memorializing. The most common right now is to hire a boat that will take the family out into the ocean so they can spread their loved one’s remains there.

Cremation jewelry for ashes is a type of jewelry that has space inside its pendent for the purpose of holding cremains. It’s a great way to honor someone’s memory forever, and it’s the best way to actually keep part of your loved one physically close to you for your own peace and comfort.

There is such thing nowadays as using your loved one’s cremains and incorporating it into a work of art. For example, you can have a modern oil painting created using the ashes of the deceased mixed with oil-based paints. If you’ve recently lost someone who you think would’ve loved this concept, this could be a great way to pay them tribute.

It could be kept in your home and kept as a family heirloom for years and years to come. It’s also the perfect idea for a gift to someone else you know who’s mourning a loss.

A digital memorial happens via websites or social media platforms. It could be through various social media sites, but Facebook is arguably the most well-known. You can also create a memorial through other platforms that specialize in creating a digital memorial of a loved one. These sites usually come complete with photos, music, etc.

A memorial garden is focused on the representation of the deceased more than actual positive environmental impact. This is because with memorial gardens, the bodies in the site are still embalmed. Therefore, the delivery of human remains into the soil takes the same amount of time as for traditional burials.

Also called ‘interactive markers,’ this new and innovative form of memorializing consists of an actual QR code being used on traditional headstones. It seems that this kind of leap into technology-led memorials is only fitting considering how much of it we tend to use in our lives today.

Another jewelry that serves the purpose of memorializing a loved one is personalized fingerprint jewelry. This jewelry is made by having your loved one’s fingerprint lasered into a pendant of your choosing.

Slightly more familiar, but still trending in 2020 is the classic scattering of the cremains. This leaves a lot of space for creativity too though, because you can think as outside the box as your time and budget allows with the location where you’d like to scatter the ashes. If the deceased had a specific place in mind, then that would obviously be the place to go.

This is a trend in the interest of saving energy and being ‘greener’ toward the environment. According to a Funeral Call article, ”Water cremations start by placing the body in a chamber that uses water, potassium hydroxide, and heat to transform the remains into bone ash.”

This allows the family to still have the ashes with which they can do whatever they find most fitting, but it also is less strain on the environment.

Human composting, as mentioned in an above section, consists of putting the body into a receptacle along with other materials like straw and wood chips in order to create a much faster way to turn the remains into soil. It’s a great option for those who want to be brought back to the natural world after their death.

If this is something your loved one valued or expressed interest in, it might just be the perfect way to celebrate their life and say your final goodbyes.

Also called a ‘tree urn,’ this is a green—and definitely trending—way to memorialize those who have passed away. It’s essentially a biodegradable egg, or urn, that can grow a tree with the cremains of your loved one.

A graveside service doesn’t necessarily have to be in an actual grave—or at least not the typical one you might picture. For a ‘green’ burial—usually consisting of the use of a cardboard box being put into the ground and minus the embalming chemicals of traditional burials—you can consider planning to also have a service for your loved one just like the one you’d have with a traditional grave site burial.

Another unique and timeless way to memorialize someone is to have their ashes turned into jewelry. There are a few different routes you can go with this.

Services are starting to become more and more dominated by the families of the deceased than has been customary in the past. Taking the lead on the service can give families a stronger sense of individualization with their loved one’s memorial. As customization is becoming more prevalent in many products in services, it’s no surprise that this situation would be no different.

This Inhabitat article talks about a company in Alabama called Holy Smoke that can turn cremains into live ammunition as a more sustainable memorial trend. It costs less than a thousand dollars for this memorial option, and the article explains that this seems to be a “cost effective tribute to your loved one.”

Holy Smoke is mentioned in another article on Death Reference Desk, plus one on the NPR website as well. It seems this idea has become an intriguing one all over the country, so it’s likely one that will spread and become an offered service more commonly in the near future.

Another highly cost-effective, and more environmentally friendly memorial trend is to use a GPS marker for the headstone. This technology allows families to find their deceased loved ones in a more high-tech way than ever before.

According to a blog in GPS Track it, cemeteries such as Arlington and Calverton National Cemeteries are already implementing this technology as a way to benefit these natural cemeteries by only using natural materials versus the traditional headstone. The markers are apparently not visible above the ground and let out a signal that lets a GPS track the location.

Another but equally unique and creative way to memorialize your loved one through jewelry is via personalized photo engraved jewelry. Beautiful keepsakes crafted of stainless steel that are laser engraved with a favorite photo.

Believe it or not, you can have ashes pressed into a vinyl record. According to an article on Finder, you can get around 30 copies for the cost of $3000.

This might be the most surprising and ‘out there’ options of them all—you can now have some of your loved one’s ashes sent out to space.

Specifically, you can find lots of sites online that can help. Here are a few ideas for you but be sure to use a search engine to look for more:

• A pastor of the deceased’s church.
• A hired ‘celebrant’ who can lead in memorials, or celebrations of life.
• An event planner who can take care of the tedious planning side, so that you can focus on being present and celebrating the life of your loved one with others who will also be mourning. Enjoying the sense of togetherness will be important for your—and everyone else’s—emotional healing. SevenPONDS, Heart2Soul, and Tiffany’s Compassionate Planning are a few services you can utilize to find out more about how you can get help with planning your loved one’s memorial service.

There is also the option of crowdfunding sites, which would be useful in the case that you need to raise funds to help alleviate the costs piling up for the family of the deceased. Funerals and memorial services can definitely get expensive, and it might give the family some relief to know that there are ways to lighten the burden a little.

Crowdfunding sites serve the purpose of allowing people in need with a worthy cause to be able to ask for and receive financial donations from those wanting to help out. See a few options for crowdfunding sites below.